Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I express my strong support for the amendment I offered on deploying an advanced early warning radar to an allied country from near term ballistic missile threats. This is a commonsense amendment and I hope it receives wide, bipartisan support from my colleagues. We all know what other countries are developing: We are now living in a world in which at least 27 nations have ballistic missile capability, and the knowledge to build and use them is rapidly proliferating. Most recently, Iran's clumsy missile test earlier this summer may not have demonstrated new technology, but it certainly demonstrated the desire to be in the club of the nations with ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction capability. As the latest IAEA report informed us, the Iranian missile threat is real and growing. General Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency, offered compelling illustrations of this growing threat in his testimony earlier this year to the Senate Armed Services Committee: ``Iran continues to pursue newer and longer-range missile systems and advanced warhead designs.'' ``Iran is developing an extended-range version of the Shahab-3 that could strike our allies and friends in the Middle East and Europe as well as our deployed forces. It is developing a new Ashura medium-range ballistic missile capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in Eastern Europe.'' ``Iranian public statements also indicate that its solid-propellant technology is maturing; with its significantly faster launch sequence, this new missile is an improvement over the liquid-fuel Shahab-3.'' The amendment offered provides funding for the Missile Defense Agency to deploy an early-warning X-band missile defense radar to an allied nation, which press reports have noted was agreed to in meetings with senior DOD leaders and the allied nation's defense leaders. Due to the sensitive nature of preparations for this deployment, details concerning the specific location and operational concept have not been publicly revealed. However, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency said the new system could double or even triple a threat missiles' range of identification, which would be particularly useful should countries such as Syria or Iran launch an attack against a critical allied nation. The new capability will improve the allied nation's missile defense. capability, allowing it to engage threats such as the Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile. A defense security expert said the significance of the deal is that it will add ``precious minutes'' to its early warning ability. The newly deployed early warning radar will also provide an important element of the U.S. missile defense network, providing ascent and mid- course coverage of missiles, launched from Iran, as well as the eastern Mediterranean. Mr. President, this amendment is common sense and I urge my colleagues to support it. Rogue nations such as Iran are dangerous and represent a vital threat to our own security and the security of our allies. Iran possesses ballistic missiles and is rapidly developing more advanced, long-range missiles. The U.S. must act responsibly, take this threat seriously, and take the necessary steps to protect our deployed forces and our allies. Madam President, I thank Senator Levin and Senator Warner for their cooperation in considering this amendment. This is a rather last-minute request. The committee would not have been able to put it in the bill because the request came up very recently from the Department of Defense. There is still an aspect of it that is classified. It has to do with the deployment of an X-band missile defense radar to an allied country. This amendment will allow the administration to go forward with that plan. I understand there is no opposition. I don't need to discuss it further.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, for the time being, I would object to that.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, is there 10 minutes remaining on our side?

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the American people sent us here to get things done, and they are obviously very frustrated with the fact that this has been a do-nothing Congress, a do-nothing Senate. We have not gotten much done. In fact, the problem has been identified by both of the Presidential candidates, Senators McCain and Obama, who have railed about the fact that we need reform in this body because nothing is getting done on behalf of the American people. The Democrats have been in charge of the Senate and House for the last 2 years. So one wonders why haven't we been able to get things done? For example, to fund the Government for next year, we are supposed to by now have passed 13 appropriations bills to fund all of the departments of the U.S. Government. Not one appropriation bill has been passed and sent to the President. We are going to have to bundle everything up in a giant ball at the end of September and, instead of carefully considering each individual department, we are going to have to adopt a continuing resolution so the Government can continue to operate. That is not the way to do business. With rare exception, the majority leader in the Senate has been less interested in enabling the Senate to work its will and finding consensus than simply pushing an agenda of the majority in a sort of my-way-or-the-highway kind of approach. This has led to gridlock and, as I said, not much getting done. Let me illustrate this by a simple statistic that says it all. In 2008 alone, so far, 28.4 percent of all rollcall votes have been cloture votes. That is a record historic high. Over 28 percent of our votes--over a fourth of them--have been cloture votes. Last year set the all-time record at 14 percent, and the average is 4.3 percent. Why is this important? Because cloture stops debate, and it stops Republicans, in this case, from offering our solutions, alternatives, or amendments to what the Democratic leader puts on the floor. He says it is either this way or nothing. You either vote on this or we are not going to let you have amendments and we are going to have a cloture vote. Again, 28.4 percent of the votes have been cloture votes. I remember several years ago when my colleague John McCain stood on the Senate floor fighting for the right of a Democratic Senator to get a vote on an amendment. He said something we all agreed with, which is that a Senator has a right to get a vote on his or her amendment. That was then and this is now: Sorry, Republicans, no votes on amendments. We are going to fill the legislative tree--a parliamentary tactic--or file cloture and stop anything from being debated or voted on. We don't want to take tough votes or give Republicans a chance to win one of the votes. What have been some of the results? Well, in 2007, some very important tax provisions expired. The research and development tax credit, for example, and the ability to fix the alternative minimum tax so it doesn't apply to most taxpayers. We have to pass what is called a tax extender bill to extend these expiring provisions and make sure the AMT doesn't get 23 million to 26 million American families this year. We have not gotten it done so far. Why? There is an obvious way to do this. The ranking member on the Finance Committee pretty well figured out how this could occur. No, we cannot get that done. On energy production, both of my colleagues have talked about that issue. The majority leader called up the so-called antispeculation bill. We all agree we could add resources to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and make sure it has the ability to regulate this futures trading in a way that would prevent manipulation and speculation in the market. But we also appreciate the fact that supply and demand is a much larger factor with regard to the price of gasoline, for example. So Republicans wanted to offer amendments that created some alternatives to the Democratic bill that would assist in nuclear energy production, coal to liquids, and allow offshore drilling as one of the key elements of it. We need relief from high gasoline prices. The Democratic leader said no. The only thing the President could do was to at least remove an Executive moratorium, which he did. That moratorium no longer exists. What happened to gas prices? Oil prices have dropped, I should say, by $40 a barrel, and gas prices have dropped somewhat off of the high above $4 because of the market's belief now that when the President withdrew the Executive moratorium, it was the first step. The second step would be Congress doing something, and that would increase production, and therefore reduce the cost of the oil, and therefore enable the American consumer to pay less at the pump. But Congress still has not done anything. Now we hear that next week the majority leader is going to allow a bill to come to the floor, but it is not going to provide the kind of offshore drilling that Republicans have been advocating. The ability to debate it is going to be very circumscribed. We are not going to be able to present the kind of amendments we would like to present and have this debated and amended so we can come up with real solutions. Another example is free trade. The Colombia Free Trade Agreement is one that almost everybody acknowledges is a good thing. It is critical for our relationship with this important country in our hemisphere, which is standing against the likes of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Yet the Democrats, because of their concern about the reaction of labor unions, have said, no, we are not going to take up this Colombia Free Trade Agreement. These are the kind of issues--and let me add one more: judges. These are the kinds of issues Americans expect us to get done. We have only confirmed four circuit court judges this year, four in the entire year, less than the average of all of the last Presidents, certainly less than Bill Clinton. Yet the majority says we don't have time to do that. Clearly, this is a do-nothing Congress. Clearly, our Presidential candidates, both of them, recognize reform is necessary. Let me mention the last issue. I mentioned appropriations bills. We are going to have to ball them up into one giant bill called a continuing resolution. Mark my words, one of the things somebody is going to try to do is attach a rider to the appropriations bill--maybe in the middle of the night, I don't know--but it is going to be to continue a moratorium on offshore drilling. Mark my words, somebody is going to try to do that. We cannot allow that to happen. Will Republicans be cut off from our ability to prevent that rider from going on the appropriations bill or to allow us to vote it off, to have an amendment to say, no, moratorium and offshore drilling is not going to be on that continuing resolution? This is critical to the American future. Are we going to have this right? These are the kinds of questions I think are going to be necessary for us to resolve before Congress is going to be able to get anything done. But I will suggest this as well: Republican Senators can only do so much in the minority when Democrats are in charge. As my colleague, Senator McCain, said at the Republican Convention, if he is elected, change is on the way. And one of the big changes is going to go right back to what he said several years ago. As I said, whether it is a Democrat wanting a vote on an amendment or a Republican, they are going to get that vote, and we are not going to have so many cloture motions filed to cut off amendments, to cut off debate, and say it is my way or the highway. The American people want something done. We still have time--even in the short time remaining in this year--to do something about the energy crisis in this country, and that means to get offshore drilling. That has to be at the top of our agenda. Secondly, we have to get the Government funded so it can continue operating next year without, as I said, a moratorium on more offshore drilling. I am hopeful that in the next 3 weeks we will be able to do some things we have not been able to do in the last 6 months. But if we get cooperation from the majority, the minority stands ready to try to work out these issues, to conclude this session on a positive note in a way we can finally say we accomplished something this session for the American people. After all, that is what they sent us here to do.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I object, and if I could just take a moment to explain why. As we have been discussing, we would like to proceed to the bill under a regular order. In discussing the proposed amendments we have ready to offer, I think it is clear they are relevant, if not germane. In fact, the first few we have suggested I know are germane. I think we would be better served to just begin the process of bringing up amendments and having debate and votes on those amendments than trying to get the approvals that would be necessary to agree to this rather cosmic unanimous consent request. That is why we object to it at this time, but I assure the majority leader that based upon the amendments we have already indicated we wish to bring forth, I would hope there would be a clear understanding of good faith on both sides that that is the way we intend to proceed. I do appreciate that the majority leader then would presumably set up a parliamentary procedure by which the majority would have to approve the offering of any Republican amendment thereafter, so the majority certainly would be protected in doing that. It would still be our intention to bring forth the right kind of amendments to deal with this legislation.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I am pleased to relate some good news from my State of Arizona. It is good news for Arizonans who live in the Verde Valley, which lies between Phoenix and Flagstaff. The Verde Valley Medical Center, a 99-bed, full-service hospital, has recently completed a $35 million expansion project. The project, which took nearly 3 years to complete, increases the size of the facility and updates a portion of the existing space. The expansion and renovation will add new medical services and help the center serve patients more efficiently. For instance, the medical imaging department will be moved to a centralized location, and more beds will be added to the telemetry unit, which serves patients who need to be monitored, but do not require intensive care. The updated facility also includes improvements and additions to serve women and children. The perinatal unit will move to a new location with a C- section operating room and a recovery room. The increase in the facility's size will also allow the creation of a pediatrics unit. This recent project is only the latest expansion in the history of the Verde Valley Medical Center. For the past 70 years, the center has adapted to meet the needs of the growing community. The origins of the Verde Valley Medical Center can be traced to 1939, when a small, outpatient facility brought xray equipment and an operating room to Cottonwood. At that time, the Marcus J. Lawrence Memorial Clinic, as the center was then known, served a small, rural population. In 1940, Yavapai County, which contains Cottonwood, was home to just over 26,000 Arizonans. Today, the county has a population of over 167,000. The Verde Valley Medical Center has grown just like the region. Just 6 years after opening, the Marcus J. Lawrence Memorial Clinic added more beds and became a hospital. Two decades later, the hospital moved to its current location and opened a new 50-bed facility. Then, in 1995, the medical center began extending its services into neighboring communities with the opening of a facility in Sedona. Later, new facilities would open in Camp Verde and Oak Creek. In 1998, the hospital became known as it is today, as the Verde Valley Medical Center, and 8 years later, the expansion project that has just been completed would begin. With the opening of the expansion, Verde Valley Medical Center is ready to build on its record of serving the north-central Arizona community. During the 2008 fiscal year, the center served about 77,000 patients. This recent expansion will help to ensure that the medical center continues to meet the health care needs of Arizonans, just as it has for the past 70 years.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole), the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter) and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker). Further, if present and voting, the senator from North Carolina (Mrs. Dole) would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask that the unanimous consent request be modified; that instead of adopting S. 3335 as an amendment, the Senate adopt the McConnell-Grassley substitute which is filed at the desk. This substitute provides the AMT patch, extends all of the traditional tax extenders, some of them with modifications, it extends the many energy tax incentives, provides for Midwest disaster relief, and includes no tax increases.

Mr. KYL. Reserving the right to object, this bill does not provide any new American energy, is flawed, and, in fact, the New York Times recently called it a ``misbegotten plan.'' Senate Republicans believe we should continue to work on the bill so it would provide meaningful relief from high gas prices for American families. For this reason, I object.

Mr. KYL. Reserving the right to object, this bill does not produce any new American energy and would increase the price of gas at the pump. Further, I agree with Chairman Bingaman that a windfall profits tax is ``very arbitrary'' and ``bad policy.'' For these reasons, I object.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this bill does not open a single new acre for the production of American energy and, in fact, would place new regulations and fees on American energy production, which would raise the price of gas at the pump. For these reasons, I object.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, further reserving the right to object, yesterday, the majority leader said that legislating is the art of compromise, and indeed it is. There has been discussion here about the Grand Old Party--my party, of which I am proud--comparing it to the idea that oil is in the past, that oil is an old idea, we were told, and Republicans are stuck in the past. The Democrats are for renewables. If you can find me a renewable that runs on wind or on solar, I would be happy to think about the idea. But I do think that since legislating is the art of compromise, we ought to listen to each other's ideas, and that means each side moving off its hard-and-fast position, meeting somewhere in the middle. Republicans are ready and willing to negotiate a true compromise, and I hope we can instruct our respective staffs to work on compromise during August. I object to the original request.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be modified to add to the text of Senate amendment No. 5137, the Coleman offshore oil exploration and conservation amendment, so we can address the root cause of high energy prices that are hurting all Americans, particularly low-income Americans.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, is there objection to my request?

Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair and I object as well.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this bill does nothing to increase American energy independence but would increase our reliance on the Middle East. Further, authorizing our Government to sue OPEC could, as Chairman Bingaman said, ``get us into all kinds of trouble internationally'' and ``is not practical.'' For these reasons, I object.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we need more energy production to reduce costs. Republicans support it, Democrats do not. Tom Friedman, quoted by the Democratic leaders, is right about one thing, Republicans want more offshore drilling. Democrats do not. Second, and I respectfully correct the majority leader in this, Senator McCain did not say offshore drilling is only psychological. He advocates more offshore drilling both because of the energy it would produce and also because, he said, it would have a positive psychological impact on energy markets. This would increase heating and cooling costs for American homes. For that reason, I object.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I fully support many of the changes that H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, makes to ensure that America's consumers are safe. However, one of the main goals of the bill is to provide the Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC, with the tools and resources it needs to protect American consumers. Although this conference report does take some steps towards that end, it simultaneously hurts businesses without providing commensurate benefits to consumers. For this reason, I will vote against the conference report. The CPSC was created in 1972 to establish a single set of product safety regulations for manufacturers and distributors to follow throughout the country. This conference report, however, includes a section that would expand the power of state attorneys general to bring actions on behalf of their own states against businesses they believe violate federal consumer protection statutes mandated by the CPSC. Giving 50 attorneys general discretion over consumer product safety laws would lead to 50 different interpretations of the law, and, thus, a confusing patchwork of safety standards that would make it more difficult for the CPSC to enforce uniform, national policies. Moreover, in recent years, some State attorneys general have used their positions to garner national attention to advance their careers. I am worried that this conference report leaves enough discretion to the state attorneys general to enforce CPSC rules that would tempt some to file frivolous lawsuits that could ultimately undermine the effectiveness of the CPSC. The conference report also keeps intact a requirement for the CPSC to create a public database of product-related complaints. This public database provides the opportunity for parties to post false information online, and allows minimal oversight by the CPSC or an opportunity for manufacturers to defend themselves. Inaccurate information about a company's product on a government-endorsed website could irrevocably harm a company's reputation, and I cannot support such a provision. I also oppose the section in the conference report that would extend new whistleblower protections to millions of employees of consumer product manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. Under this bill, once an employee notifies the CPSC of an action he ``believes to be'' a violation of a consumer product safety regulation, the employer faces a fine if it discharges or takes any negative action against the employee. Including such a provision would grant any disgruntled employee a powerful incentive to report erroneous or unsubstantiated information as an alleged product safety violation in order to insulate himself from unrelated disciplinary actions. There is no reason for such a provision except to dramatically unbalance the employee-employer relationship, and the failure to fix this section after repeated attempts causes me even greater concern that it has little to do with legitimate whistleblowers and more to do with hamstringing employers from dealing appropriately with problem employees. It is unfortunate that I am forced to vote against this conference report because I do believe the CPSC's resources ought to be bolstered. However, this conference report carries with it too many of the problems that existed when the bill left the Senate.

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Bond), the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Coleman), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Hagel), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would have voted ``nay.''